Personally, I don't want to spend 2 points in Gather Strength, even if they made it more useful. I think the best idea is to give Zen Strike the ability to fully root a non-resolve bar target for the duration of master strike. But that could be way over powering.

Narrowed view. The only ability guaranteed to crit is smash. And the advantage of overkill over might is marginal, hardly noticeable. /GG //My GG is capitalized which makes me wittier and wins the argument

Thanks for the presentation! I personally build my Guardian very differently, preferring power mods over crit. In fact, I've eliminated every crit mod from my build now. I've also lent more weight to accuracy rating than you displayed. I've got accuracy/power in my pants and implants. Now that my implants are conq and str/end augmented I may be able to drop the acc in the legs for more surge. I've found it is vitally important to stay just above 95%/105% accuracy for PvP as vigilance. Thankfully it's easily achieved with just 2 to 3 pieces in conjunction with three points into skill tree accuracy. Also, I don't feel gather strength and defiance offer enough to justify taking them. It's tough to explain, but it feels like I'm always just dead or out of the fight completely when the CC those talents need to be effective actually happen. The extra 7.5% crit chance to dispatch from the focus tree is definitely worth considering, as is the 6% to crit force attacks.

Thanks for the clarification, again >8-) The only reason I can think of as to why they put alacrity in the focus is it is a shared item between guardians and sentinels. But it makes no sense as they could just as easily offered another focus for guardians. Instead I had to buy two pieces of gear to make the one viable. STUPID!

Math says you should go with power augments, but I say frack math and go with your over sized gut and get strengf. Fourteen power augments will give you something around 28 more power than you'd get from fourteen strength augments. But Strength is the spaccable stat for us, is increased by buffs and stims, adds to your crit rating, and has no cap soft or hard. I choose versatility. I choose justice. I choose strength.

This is such a ridiculous argument that has raged for over a derpin' year. It's not going to derpin' happen. This thread has turned into a "last" thread and is quickly approaching full derp potential. /derp //derpderp

No it's not a lag issue. I've been getting this too! Matter of fact, I mentioned it to a friend over mumble when I noticed it and he immediately suggested it was lag as well. I've been playing vigilance long enough to notice hey, that sniper just knocked me back less than a second after I leaped ... ***? This is happening to me for sure, and by every class no less.

Thanks for the definite info. Since alacrity does not effect master strike or dots, and since the resource generation is lost on us, it is definitely a detrimental stat for us to have in anything. I'm rather pissed that they would put it in our PVP focus offhand. *** were they thinking?

This is a very good point and one I had not thought of. Snipers are turrets, but they have cover, roll, and entrench amongst other defensive abilities that make them very good semi-moveable turrets. But being as they are different AC and Mercs have other abilities as trade off, it seems any additional abilities would be unfavorable. Maybe add the bonus of being uninterrupted to a defensive cooldown. Or granting them stacks (like a marauder when they attack) when they are dealt direct damage which could proc a passive ability, something like "Really Pissed Off", that makes them uninterruptable for a few seconds.

I disagree. We have Commanding Awe and Unremitting. You're asking for too much. Besides, Narrowed Focus gives us that much more incentive to stay on target by increasing our resource generation. It's worth the 1 point.

That actually doesn't answer any of my questions so I will simplify ... How much bonus alacrity (+140? +220?) would I need to reduce master strike channel from 4 to 3 seconds? Would I be able to noticeably increase my burst with 3 or 4 alacrity augments?

I've been researching alacrity in regards to Vigilance guardians, motivated by trying to improve my opening rotation's impact against players in PVP. I dug up some posts about Master Strike now being effected by alacrity. So I started playing with replacing surge enhancements with alacrity. It's immediately obvious that you start sacrificing a good amount of surge to achieve decent numbers in alacrity. Problem is; How much bonus alacrity alacrity (can't figure out bonus = %) would I need to reduce Master Strike's channel time by 1 second? http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/e5764433-7d35-4d5c-a0b7-84dc6fae2aab Also, does alacrity hasten the duration of our DoTs from Plasma Brand, Overhead Slash and Blade Storm? If it doesn't, why the fark not? Stands to reason that if they were so hellbent on making alacrity beneficial to Guardians that they would also allow it to reduce the cooldowns of our abilities. Finally, if alacrity actually means shiat for us, why force us to take it in the Focus Generators? Bioware having a laugh?

**Disclaimer** My merc is only level 24 so I'm not an expert. 2.0 merc/mando buffs focused on their mobility, which is clear. But it seems people are still displeased with no change to their "turret" style DPS. I suggest we compare mercs/mandos to juggs/guardians: Mercs/Mandos have heavy armor, damage mitigation, gap openers, CC, minor heals, cast times and range. Juggs/Guardians have heavy armor, damage mitigation, gap closers, CC, and instant abilities. It's give and take people. Mercs/Mandos have 30m range while melee MUST stay on target. I think the mobility buffs were fantastic additions to the class, and giving kolto missile (an instant cast perfect to use while running away) is more valuable than some people are able to see. And 6 seconds every 20 seconds of unimpeded movement is yet another gap opener. That's a ton of free movement time that people seem not to care about. I wish my Guardian main had that! We don't have anything like it. I'm not saying Mercs/Mandos are perfect, but they require a very different play style which takes time to master. They're also least favored for RWZs because of their need to "turret" to make a difference still. I don't know what to do about that, maybe make Unload a moveable channel or Tracer Missle instant. But it still stands that they are a completely different play style that requires intelligent decisions and practice.

I think this is a gross oversight that should have been addressed shortly after launch. This is only going to level the playing field. I can't tell you how frustrating it is trying to stay on targets in pvp. It's so freaking easy to stay away from a vigilance guardian. What sucks the most is we have to maintain 95%/105% accuracy. That takes up a considerable slice of the pie, leaving our power and surge ratings far less than a smash monkey's. If you min/max acc + crit/surge (like all the guides tell you to) your power drops to just above 600 (PvP geared). Such little power has you hitting like a child. I tried all this and it doesn't work. Even though you stay well below the 25% critical rating soft cap, the real diminishing returns is from the lack of power. In other words, your critical hits are far weaker and more irregular than the smash monkey's 8K aoes. To further complicate our gearing needs; We're supposed to crit our weapon and force attacks, but are told most of our damage comes from powerful damage over time effects mostly effected by power rating. So how am I supposed to min/max anything? I don't know what the answer is, but 15% movement speed is definitely a start.

You should first decide if you want to tank or not. There is one tree to spec for defense so that's easy and it's completely viable to level with. If you decide on dps and are under lvl 45, just spec Vigilance. Focus relies on Force Exhaustion as it's the "enabler" and you can't get it until you hit lvl 45. Vigilance's talents are pretty much good on their own. Single Saber Mastery, Shien Form and Overhead Slash are very beneficial to the tree and come much earlier than Focus's key components.